In this file photo, a memorial outside of the Inland Regional Center is shown March 2 in San Bernardino. On Dec. 2, 2015, 14 people were killed and 22 others wounded when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire on an IRC conference room.

Tionna Thompson sheds a tear in this file photo as she prays at the Kingdom Culture Worship Centre as they hold a prayer vigil for the victims of the Inland Regional Center terrorist attack in San Bernardino.

In the raw aftermath of the Dec. 2 terrorist attack, we were shaken to our core, looking for understanding.

The gut-wrenching horror seemed surreal — the facts did not coincide with our sense of reality.

In the days and weeks that followed, the whole community tried to make sense of what happened that day at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

But it was senseless.

After a few days, the City Council went back to business; local organizations held vigils and still others sponsored fundraisers for the victims and their families.

There were marches and meetings, and then the mournful drumbeat of funerals and memorials.

A pall hung over the city.

That was one year ago — not a milestone except on the calendar.

In mid-December, I spoke to Randy Stier, a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical counselor who focuses on grief, loss and bereavement.

He told me then that the loss was traumatic and unanticipated.

“People lose their assumptive world — it messes up their ideas of what is safe and disrupts the equilibrium of families,” he said.

These days, we go on living the best we can.

“Normal activities are good,” Stier said then. “Normalcy is important — especially for kids, who may have suffered secondary losses.”

So we go on — families and jobs, band practice and school work, picnics and making ends meet. Weddings, yard work, football games.

The poignant makeshift memorial that appeared after the tragedy at the corner of Orange Show Road and Waterman Avenue has diminished in size, but weathered stuffed animals, sympathy banners and wooden stars bearing names of the victims remain. Mostly there are American flags lining the chain-link fence.

The city is planning a permanent memorial to pay tribute to the lives lost.

San Bernardino is beginning to heal the holes in its heart, but scars remain.

We are forever changed.

Chad Dziedzickie, a full-time hospice bereavement coordinator and minister, was personally touched by grief that day.

Dziedzickie and his colleagues at Compassus Hospice in Colton were at an office meeting when they heard the news of what was happening at the nearby IRC.

Some colleagues lost loved ones, he said.

“You are adjusting to a new normal — adjusting to the world around you and what’s going on inside of you.”

You never get over it, he said, you just work through it.

“We all grieve differently, even members of the same family,” he said.

Some of us try to compartmentalize tragedy — a coping mechanism that relegates pain to a sort of shoebox in our brains.

We process, but the loss weighs on our shoulders.

“There are a lot of variables in how you grieve, but a spiritual connection is crucial — very important,” Dziedzickie said.

“We always consider the spiritual connection for bereavement risk assessment. It’s documented that having a belief system helps.”

Working through it is important, but knowing you will be happy again is important, too, Chad said.

So, although we can heal, we will never be the same.

“For some people, it never ends,” said Jennifer Hughey, a licensed marriage and family therapist in San Bernardino.

There’s no timetable, but the level of intensity does change, according to Dawn Duckworth-Ouellet, a licensed marriage and family therapist who lives in Lake Arrowhead.

“For some people, grieving doesn’t even start until more than a year later — some have to unmask past losses first,” she said.

“Grief does change something in you — in time you find the meaning in it.”

It’s true. We don’t anticipate horror. Caught off guard and reeling, we were catapulted into a nightmare.

We couldn’t expect that kind of darkness.

Those darkest days will weigh on the minds of the community for years, and in the hearts of the families forever.

A parent, spouse or child can only survive this blow to the heart with prayer and loving support.

With that support — and the will — we go on.

As Dziedzickie, and other counselors have told me, we will be happy again.

Maybe learning to grieve with hope is the answer.

Michel Nolan is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Reach her at mnolan@scng.com or on Twitter @MichelNolan.

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